Sep 22 Drama Aside, It's OVER for Republicans on Defunding Obamacare

It was amusing to see the drama play out on today's Sunday morning TV shows. Needless to say, I enjoy few things more than seeing Republicans tying themselves into knots trying to insist that they don't want to shut down the government unless they can defund the Affordable Care, and attaching its defunding to the bill to keep the government running was just... I don't know, being cute, I guess. But for all the huffing and puffing from the Republicans and for all the pretense of "countdown to shutdown" from the media, the fight is over. Even Rand Paul (following his Tea Party nutty buddy Ted Cruz), has given up.

Paul, whose potential as presidential contender in 2016 has been a subject of much speculation, admitted that absent a sudden and total alignment behind an approach to tackling the health care law, his caucus' "disunity" means Republicans will most likely fall short of canceling, or even delaying, the law from going into effect.

"Leverage doesn't work unless people believe you'll actually do something," Paul said. "The fact that Democrats don't believe we'll do anything, in the end they'll get what they want and a bill will be cobbled together."

Sniffle, sniffle. The Republicans who would hold the line in the Senate on defunding Obamacare attached to a "must pass" bill have conceded defeat even before their body takes up the measure. House Republicans went on a limb to do it, all the while expecting exactly this outcome, of course. John Boehner and the House GOP leadership is not willing to fight this and take the hit for shutting down the government while their own party in the Senate abandons them at a time when there is little appetite in the country for defunding Obamacare.

Right now, there is absolute chaos in the Republican party and a fight between the far Right Tea Partiers and the GOP establishment that enabled it in the first place. The Tea Party base is incensed that the establishment is refusing to shut down the government over Obamacare, and the establishment is visibly distressed at the absolutism of the Tea Party base that they know is making the rest of the country absolutely despise the Republican party. But it's the establishment's fault, really. They were the ones that hatched the brilliant plan to win by obstructing Obama on everything and anything. Now they are complaining that their own base is upset they won't take it to the most absurd of the ends.

But I digress. My point is, the drama you see on TV is all for show. The government isn't going to shut down, and Obamacare is not going to be defunded. This isn't a fight that's "raging." It's already been conceded by not just the people who would have to stick by it to make it a real fight but by those who initiated it.

Obamacare is here to stay, and there is not a damn thing the Republicans or the Tea Party can do about it.